PERSONAL SPACE by Miriam Fried
After the movie Jack had insisted on staying through every minute of credits, following which he’d gotten us lost on our way to the subway stop and then suggested, in a mad flash of inspiration, that we ought to take the bus. Back when he’d first turned left instead of right I’d been doubtful, only I wasn’t sure enough to insist on going the other way; if I were wrong the entire evening would, somehow, turn into my fault. So I let my husband walk authoritatively onward in the unfamiliar city for too long, and by the time we saw the lights of the bus running vaguely in the direction of our new apartment, it seemed reasonable enough to flag it down.
On the bus we sat at right angles to each other while I explained which things the movie ought to have done better and Jack explained that those things were actually the best parts – this was a sort of conversation we were very good at having – and then two stops later a loud, elated crowd dressed mostly in hockey jerseys streamed on and we realized our mistake. They’d just been to the game and could have been avoided completely if we’d gotten the train we meant to get at the time we meant to get it. Jack and I argued half-heartedly about whether this constituted tragic hamartia, a fatal error, or just a temporary nuisance. I thought of getting off the bus and waiting for the next one, but even making the suggestion seemed exhausting. So I just looked out the window and listened to the noise of the boys in the aisle and wondered if I were on the right bus, or in the right city, or with the right husband. One thing you could say for Jack, though, was that it would never occur to him to smear team colors on his cheeks, or even to have a team in the first place. I was about to ask him to come sit next to me before someone wearing warpaint managed it first, but before I could make up my mind the seat was taken.
He was drunk and wearing enormous sneakers and he spread out his knees and his elbows as if I weren’t there. His friends were still standing up, breaking out into the occasional chant and punching each other in a friendly way. He had to make this call, man, he told them, they should shut the fuck up, and they hooted and didn’t, and he grinned back at them as if he hadn’t really expected them to. Then he got out his phone and let out a tremendous sigh when apparently the right person answered. His girlfriend, or his ex-girlfriend, or at any rate someone to whom he owed a great deal of remorse.
He was sorry, baby, he was so, so sorry. He loved her. He wanted to be with her. He’d been thinking about her all night. She should please listen to him, believe him, baby, because he’d do anything for her. He was gentle, docile, and painfully ardent. Meanwhile he was unpeeling his sweaty shirt from his stomach and wafting it pungently back and forth, to air himself out. Every time he said “baby,” which was often, he rocked forward on his toes, which thrust his right knee further into my space. Then he would shut up and listen with his mouth open, the phone very tiny in his big hand. I peeked at him during one of these quiet spells and thought he looked devastated and hungry at the same time, as if he wanted to shove the phone into his mouth and bite down. Then he began his pleading again, even more softly, even more shattered, and I looked away to see if Jack was paying attention. I thought he should be, because it was interesting to listen to someone have feelings, and also it would give us something to talk about later.
Jack was still arranged neatly in his seat with his back straight and seemed to be gazing up at the vocational school advertisements with pleased interest. Most likely he was faking – you couldn’t not notice a tragedy taking place barely three feet away. But when I kicked him, it took him a moment to tear himself away from the clusters of happily multicultural students who had just learned English or gotten a certificate in medical billing and turn back to me. I rolled my eyes helpfully toward the sad, drunken boyfriend. Jack looked at me in confusion and I saw that he really had been oblivious all along. I’d have to explain the whole thing to him so that he could laugh with me forever at louts in love, but I didn’t mind because he smiled at me so sweetly and then made an apologetic motion with his hands. I leaned forward and squeezed one of my husband’s courteous corduroy knees. The boyfriend next to me put his phone away and started to cry.
A few years later when my marriage was over and the city was no longer unfamiliar, I thought again of the boy on the bus. Jack and I still spoke to each other after the smash and even discussed chickpea recipes which maybe is how more relationships should end but is also like bringing out the spray cleaner for a good scrub after some primitive ritualistic blood orgy has claimed its victims. Still, we were getting compliments on our model divorce. Jack was willing to discuss what was mine and what was politely his without shouting and breaking things. He did it all wrong. He should have called me late at night when he was drunk and broken. He should have pleaded and spread out his knees.
Miriam Fried’s stories have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Ambit, Crab Creek Review, Watchword, and The Baltimore Review.